


tempus edax rerum

by aut0_resp0nder



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, and adrenaline junkies, and also kiss, and die a bunch, and they find out that you can die while time traveling and you come back to life in the present, dave and aradia are time travelers, so they just. timeline hop, the gist of this story is, this story focuses around death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 00:52:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14822121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aut0_resp0nder/pseuds/aut0_resp0nder
Summary: And if a double-decker busCrashes into usTo die by your sideIs such a heavenly way to dieAnd if a ten-ton truckKills the both of usTo die by your sideWell, the pleasure - the privilege is mine- "A Light That Never Goes Out", The Smiths





	tempus edax rerum

you meet him when you are fourteen years old. you’d just recently discovered your talent, and fiddling with the melody of your heirloom quartz-plated antique music box had left you dizzy-headed and starry-eyed in a place and time indeterminate. after examining your clothes, you decide after a few minutes that it must be victorian england. the white-trimmed block flat buildings loom above, your small frame dwarfed by the wide cobblestone street and endless expanse of dull brick and hazy smog. you cough, and he says, “excuse you.” from behind.  
you whirl around, eyes frightened and wide, and he offers you a lazy smile in return. he’s dressed formally, an ink-black suit with terminally shiny shoes and a pair of perfectly circular sunglasses. he extends a hand, and you shake it. he’s exactly your height, and when he shoves the glasses into his blonde hair, his rose-red eyes match your own. you ask him who he is, and he responds, “someone just like you.”  
“so, did you know,” he says, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, as the two of you make your way down the street. “that anytime you do anything in the past, evidence shows up that it happened in the present?” nobody you pass stares at you, you both fit right in--his dark suit and your soft sepia dress creating period-accurate contrast and period-accurate comparison all at once. “i jumped off the twin towers once, and when i checked my dad’s photo album, you could see me in the photo.”  
you stop in your tracks, turn and face him. “you jumped off a skyscraper??”  
he looks at you, his glasses still resting on the top of his head. “i mean, yeah.”  
“you’re still alive????”  
“dude. when you die in the past, you show up perfectly chill back in the present. it’s like you never even left.”  
you goggle at him for a moment before a smile bullies its way onto your unwilling face. “well, shit,” you say, with an air of affirmation and finality, “let’s go get killed.”

“where do ya wanna start?” he asks, as if he’s asking where to begin a paint-by-number project, idly tapping a tuneless rhythm onto the cracked and scuffed street. both of you sit shoulder to shoulder on the short curb, tired after your long walk through the darkening streets. “natural disaster, murder, or suicide, you pick.”  
you feel as though this is a tipping-off point, as if you’re making a deal with something deep and dark and dangerous. you push the storm clouds from your adrenaline-junkie mind and smile at him radiantly; he smiles back, something you’re beginning to understand is a rare occurrence with him. “let’s start with, um… i don’t think i’m ready to kill myself yet.” he snorts softly at that, and you’re almost proud to have made him laugh, this strange blonde boy with no name that you’re contemplating death with. “how about this. we kill someone, get caught, and then they execute us for it.”  
“sounds good,” he says. “i kinda wanna get hung. wanna do the honors?” he gestures extravagantly to your tiny music box, and you turn the handle one, two, three turns clockwise, and at the last second before you’re warped away, you slip your arm in his, taking him with you.

“oh fuck, oh fuck,” you mutter under your breath, dropping the knife like it’s burned you. he looks far too good at this for your taste, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up and his dark suspenders looped around his waist, long shrugged off his tense shoulders. his sunglasses have morphed into a pair of gold-rimmed aviators, and they conceal his eyes from you as he mechanically wipes the slick red blood from his shaking hands.  
“forgot how much i hate blood. shoulda used poison,” he says, his voice taut and strained, unlike your wobbly and watery warble. you step gingerly over the prone body of the elegantly-dressed young woman you’d just surprised, a dark blotch marring the purple sash at her waist and turning the jade-green blouse she’s wearing into a soggy, stained mess. you nearly trip over her stilettoed feet as you scramble backwards. you hear police sirens in the distance. “we gotta stay here, so they catch us. you’re still okay with going through with this, right?” he sounds concerned, more concerned for you than for the dead woman at your feet. you nod, a slight tremor in your velvet-clothed frame.  
“no point in chickening out now.”  
“that’s my girl,” he says, and as the police cars close in, you decide that you’d like to hear him say that more often.

they find the two of you guilty, of course, you did do it after all. you confessed right away, and the trail lasts less than a week. you while away the hours until your execution in a concrete cell, your line of sight flicking out between the iron bars to the cell across the hall and two blocks down, which houses him. you meet his gaze twice in three days. the first time he waves, the second time you do. on the fourth day, the two of you die.  
you’d requested to be executed together. a small crowd gathers in the courtyard, likely family of the woman--a girl, really, you feel guilty, as you should--you and he had killed. a tall, willowy woman covered in spiraling tattoos folds her arms, and a caustic-looking boy in a bow tie glares up at the two of you as you balance precariously on the platform, necklaces of rope forming both your collars. a man in a tall hat says a few things (you don’t listen, you never have and probably never will) before he approaches the two of you. a millisecond before the floor goes out from underneath your feet, he takes your hand and squeezes it, tightly, reassuring you that everything would be alright.

you awaken with him in a room. the walls are stark white, and when you touch them, they come away slightly chalky. he pulls you up and takes you by the shoulders. “so.”  
“so,” you parrot suspiciously.  
“so,” he repeats, “did you like it? dying?” he looks hopeful, or what you think might be hopeful behind the dark partitions of polarized plastic that make up his shades.  
“you know what?” you have to be honest. “i did like it.” you elicit a muted cheer from him, and it makes you grin.  
“wanna do it again?”  
“hell yeah i do. natural disaster.”  
“comin’ right up.”  
a massive set of ruby-encrusted turntables spins under his expert hands, putting a long, deep scratch through the record on top with a practiced motion and a screeching noise, and reality bends around you. you can feel it, actually, the sensation of time rewinding, the speed of the timeline making your hair flutter and his tie blow over his shoulder. he clamps a hand on the record and your rewind stops with a jolt.  
you pry your wind-stung eyes open and they’re immediately assaulted with a cold breeze. your clothes have changed; he’s shadeless, showing off your matching crimson irises, his dark suit replaced by a simple white button-up and a pair of brown dress pants. he smiles at you, and his face is radiant. your legs are bare, a shimmering purple gown stretching down to your knees and doing nothing to shield your skin from the oppressive chill. “a regular anne hathaway,” he calls you, and you grin. you lace your fingers together with his and pull him to the ship’s railing, looking over the side so far you almost tip yourselves overboard--r.m.s. titanic is stenciled onto the metal siding in masculine block print--and you squeeze his hand in yours.  
he pulls you close suddenly, giving you a start. the string band is playing a tune from somewhere indoors, and the mood is almost ghostly, what with having knowledge of what’s about to happen. but you dance with him anyway, swaying in the april night. three hours later the two of you freeze to death in the icy atlantic under the cloudless sky freckled with stars, intertwined like silk ribbons on all the christmas presents that will never be delivered after tonight, and when he kisses you with the moonlight shining in his eyes, he tells you that he’ll see you in the morning. and that was that.

you open your eyes to the sight of the now-familiar white room. you shiver, wring out your soaking hair and splay yourself out flat on the floor of unknown material. you play with the idea that it might be linoleum while you wait for him, and just as you finally decide that it must simply be plexiglas, he appears with a muted flash next to you, in his trademark formal attire once again. the expensive cotton clings to his dripping frame, and when he hauls you up by the hand his skin is colder and clammier than yours. his sunglasses have returned as well, but you lift them from the bridge of his nose as gently as you can, to reveal his bright eyes with frost still clinging to his lashes. “let’s go somewhere warm this time,” he requests, a slight tremor in his voice, and you press your warm skin into his chill embrace as you turn the handle on your music box.  
the chiptune melody flings you back to the war era, and the calendar on the wall of the casino basement reads “1945”. he’s dressed to the nines in a sleek dark gray business jacket and a shiny pair of leather shoes, and he compliments your silky, form-fitting red dress. you look around to see a lively casino, lights flashing and people cheering with their meager winnings, before he sweeps you to the side of the room and down a dingy set of concrete stairs. you tense for a moment before the rusty door swings open and reveals only the basement. you relax, seating yourself somewhat primly in the metal chair, becoming for the first time aware of the polished pearl-handled revolver sitting menacingly on the table in front of you.  
“russian roulette,” he says through a suppressed grin, and your heart rate spikes with anticipation at the thought of the ultimate gamble. this’ll be your most exciting yet. you extract a handful of coins from your pocket and they skitter across the table like agitated silverfish. whispers surround you, and you realize that a group of four vaguely threatening-looking men, all sharply dressed, surround the table. one’s wearing an eye patch, and you can see a thick, ragged scar ravaging the flesh underneath, making you shiver at the sight. they take turns, fishing out their wallets and money clips and adding to the growing money pool. you extend a slender finger and push the gun to him. “you go first.”  
he smirks, cocks the revolver in his hand, idly spins the barrel, levels it with his temple. the mafia goons surrounding him cheer him on in more hushed whispers. you brush specks of cheap plaster dust off your slinky red dress as he pulls the trigger, and when the click comes after a split-second of intense silence, you take the gun from his outstretched hand. you give the six-round a flick with a newly manicured nail to the sound of the mobsters silencing each other as they wait for this skinny little girl in a dress too old for her to see what fate has in store. you pull back the hammer, catch his eye (he smiles, and you grow warm) and fire a hole through your head from an inch and a half away.

you gasp awake in the same room as you always do, waiting for him. you wait what you are fairly sure is an hour--you have no way to know for sure, but that’s what feels right to you. he pops into existence, the ghost of a trail of blood running down the side of his face, and he hauls you up by the hand. he holds you close, breathing heavy. you wonder what happened.  
“what happened?” you ask, concerned. he shakily pushes up his shades, swipes under his eyes with a pale hand.  
“didn’t like seein’ you blow your brains out ten feet away from me,” he says. your face falls.  
“oh, i’m so sorry, i--” he cuts you off.  
“no, you’re. you’re fine,” he says. he draws you to him again, presses a kiss to your cheek. you feel the place where he kissed you burn in an oddly pleasant way before he lets you go. he looks at you then, through the sunglasses. you smile at him, and he grins back, the way only you can make him.  
“so, where to next, my knight in shining armor?”


End file.
